


Walk Tall, the Coda

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars Saucy Sides [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Non-Explicit, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23666200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: An imagining of what might have happened between Fives and Rex after both 'For a Man should Walk Tall' and 'Walk Tall, an Aside'.Mature. Will probably not make sense without context.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555, CT-21-0408 | Echo/CT-7567 | Rex, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Soft Wars Saucy Sides [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701715
Comments: 21
Kudos: 149





	Walk Tall, the Coda

The quiet tap of boots ring like like a judgment’s gavel. Fives does not imagine who it could be. He doesn’t have to.

“In the hall, troopers?”

Echo whimpers a scalding breathed _oh force_ across his throat. The back of Fives’ neck is freezing. There is dismay threatening his throat, anticipation burning deep in his belly.

“Step apart. Three feet. Hands behind your backs. Grip your opposite wrists.”

“Sir,” he says, he pleads. His voice is pathetic to his own ears and he already knows he's wasting his breath. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for.

“Three feet,” the Captain repeats. He is unmoved and unmovable. “Now Fives.”

His mind has long forgotten where he ended and Echo began. To unwind themselves from each other is no simple task. The Captain must grow annoyed with waiting: will this be the time he finally loses patience with Fives?

His foot kicks a gauntlet. His, Echo’s, he doesn’t know. Their armor is stacked in a pile of both of them, discarded in haste and without respect. Fives settles into the position. He doesn’t look at the armor. He tries not to look at Echo. He hopes Echo doesn’t look at him. He’s primed, obscene in his blacks. Obvious. _Desperate_. Pathetic.

“I gave an order,” Captain Rex says, “that you have ignored.” His voice is a trap for the unwary, luring them in with false promises of calm. “I’d like an explanation.”

Echo will answer. In every other moment Fives leads, always has. But Echo has bloomed under the Captain’s hand, slowly unfurling into something honey-sweet that is as much a trap as the Captain’s calm. Echo is the Captain’s favorite. They have a better chance if the answer comes from him.

Fives loves Echo, worships the Captain. He doesn’t hate them. But sometimes, when he sees them with each other, he thinks he wants to. It’s an ugly thing, jealousy.

“Sir,” he breaks in, before Echo can spin whatever words he can find that might let them both walk free. They, all three of them, know Fives can’t lie. “The rest of the squad returned to barracks sir.” It’s not a reason, not an excuse, just a statement.

The steps are the only thing he can hear of the Captain, and those barely. He’s wearing Echo’s shoulder guard, Fives’ pauldron, the rest of his armor. Likely something from the Lieutenant. And even under that weight, from less than five feet away Fives has to strain to hear the reverb of his sole against the maintenance tunnel grating.

“I don’t recall,” the Captain muses and the wary part of the mind the Captain has made them cultivate whispers _threat_ and _disengage_. “At what point did I claim my orders were contingent on conditions?”

There’s a roar like the oceans of Kamino in Fives’ ear. Echo stumbles, cries out.

Would they have? With the squad there? Listening? Watching?

Yes, Fives knows. He doesn’t have to doubt that. If that was what the Captain wanted.

“Position, Echo,” the Captain says. Gently, gently, always gentle with Echo. He bruises so easily. He sees Echo straighten.

“Sir,” Echo says, nearly a cry. Fives doesn’t dare say anything.

“You are both always good for me, so I will assume you didn’t understand the parameters. That’s my mistake.”

_Tap, tap, tap,_ the Captain’s boots appear in front of Five’s bowed head. _Tap, tap, tap_ they pace away.

“I’m going to give you clear steps. I want you to tuck yourselves away. I want you to armor up. Put everything on. I want you to go up to officers’ living. I want you to enter my berth. You will disarm, down to your blacks. You will face different walls. You will hold this same position, with your head against the walls, until I release you. You will not touch yourselves. You will not touch each other. You will not come. Are you able to follow these orders?”

“No sir.”

It’s instinct, it’s been instinct since Fives knew who he was, who Echo was. Fives protects Echo, always.

“Echo won’t make it sir,” he says. Not that last one. Echo's trigger has always been the width of a hair. Fives' lips are dry. He licks them. It doesn’t help.

A silent moment. A quiet prod “Echo?”

A humiliated “I’m sorry sir.”

“Thank you both for being honest with me.”

Fives can’t hear what the Captain says next. He doesn’t hear anyone moving, barely hears the air that hints that words are said at all. Whatever the Captain is saying, it’s for Echo alone.

“ _Now_ , trooper.”

Most times, Echo fires silent. But every once in a while, when Fives manage to completely overwhelm him, he’ll forget himself for a bare fraction of seconds. Fives knows the cut off sound that bursts from his brother intimately.

“Good,” the Captain says. It’s still quiet, still private. Fives shouldn’t be listening. “Now armor up.”

Gingerly, Echo moves. Fives moves. A hand on his arm stops him. “Position Fives.” Fives falls back into position. There’s no part of his mind that considers doing otherwise.

“Good.” It’s the voice the Captain uses with Echo, with both of them but Echo earns it so much more easily than Fives ever has. It’s deep with warmth and layered with approval. Fives doesn’t expect it to be the gut punch it is. “Stay with me Fives.”

“Yes sir,” he chokes out. He’ll stay wherever the Captain needs him to.

The Captain holds his arm, below the shoulder, thumb running along the line where a pauldron’s lower straps tighten. “Will you do this for me?”

“Yes sir.” There isn’t another answer.

The Captain isn’t satisfied. “I know you _can_ , Fives. _Will_ you?”

He doesn’t understand.

“Will you give this to me? Will you leave yourself wanting for me, wait for me?” Again and again his thumb trails fire over Five's arm. "I would like to try this, with you."

Yes. Yes. Yes.

“Please,” he sobs. He wants it. He needs it. He never even knew he did. “Please.”

“I’m going to take care of you,” the Captain promises. It’s everything Fives has ever wanted.

He is so primed it hurts, he doesn’t know how he’s going to get his codpiece on without firing off. But the Captain asked him if he would. He will.

The Captain smiles, viciously soft and darkly satisfied. “Good.”

Fives isn’t so disciplined that he could stop himself swaying forward when the Captain moves away. He’s disciplined enough to stop himself before he takes a step out of position.

“ _Good_. Good Fives. Armor up.”


End file.
